A New World of Magecraft
by Worldbringer of Joseun
Summary: Shirou Emiya saved Illya and the world. Unfortunately, the price was that he no longer is part of his world. Instead, he has to find a new way and reason to live in a different world. Maybe the inhabitant of that ominous black castle could help...
1. Prologue

**All right. This is a new story that will have (what little) attention I can give in November. Why, Nanowrimo. That, said, I'm not giving too much attention to the rules. I'm just seeing if I can write most of a story in one month.**

**In addition, this is part of Alex-Kellar's writing contest. This entry is Salem/Shirou.**

**Updates will be sporadic but hopefully frequent for this month.**

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A New World of Magecraft

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Prologue: How He Came to Be

Shirou Emiya stood over the copy of Berserker's sword and wondered what he should say.

Sella had not survived his walk through the gate of the corrupted Grail that led to the Root. She had not even been able to walk at all so Shirou had had to carry her. Carefully. As merely brushing the Dress of Heaven would have turned a human into gold and gold wasn't noted for its ability to walk. After all, nobody worried about their gold getting up and running away. If gold did, thieves would be more noted for being sprinters than being sneaky.

But a projection to strap Sella onto his back and to separate him from the deadly dress was enough for both of them to go through instead of Illya. Sure, Shirou would have loved to spend more time with his sister and Kiritsugu's daughter. But they had no choice. The Grail was full and was about to unleash a world ending threat. And Illya would not have survived. Something that had managed to bring him, Sella, and Leysritt into unity.

Shirou reached out and patted Berserker's sword which now served as the gravestone for Illya's maids.

"Sella," Shirou stopped, not finding the words before trying again without much success. "You and I were not friends, not like how Leysritt and I could have become. In contrast, you were always worried that I would harm or distract Illya. That my presence, my very existence, would hurt her more."

Shirou smiled bitterly. "You were right. I did hurt her. I loved her, took her in as my sister, and then left her behind. My sister, who lost her entire family in the Fourth War and never saw them again. And now I, me, her unworthy brother, betrayed her and left her behind."

Shirou looked up at the sky, hidden behind the dark black clouds and thought about the scene that his father might have seen when looking up at the stars that fateful night all those years ago. Was he also thinking about the daughter, his precious girl, that he couldn't save?

"I did it to save her. But that doesn't matter. Kiritsugu did too. If he hadn't destroyed the Grail, Illya would have died from Angra Mainyu. Or maybe she would have lived a life worse than death. I don't know. Dad never talked about what Angra Mainyu tempted him with. But whatever it was, it was enough for Illya to reject it with horror. The most scared I ever saw her, except for when Berserker was killed by the remains of the Tainted Grail."

"But you know that already. Both you and Leysritt saw Illya's fear. That was why we hatched this plan. Why we attacked and knocked Illya out after sacrificing Leysritt to make the Dress of Heaven."

The dress that even now was buried underneath Berserker's sword. The last remains of Illya's quiet but strong and loyal maid. Still wrapped around Sella as her clothes.

It was disgusting that the only way to make the Dress involved sacrificing a life. But they didn't have good options. And letting Illya carry through on her decision to sacrifice herself wasn't one of them.

"We loved her. That was the only thing we agreed on with our differing personalities." Shirou's eyes watered as tears slipped down.

He missed Illya. He wanted to be with her. But he couldn't. The Gate was closed and it would never be opened again.

"We all knew it would kill us. That you could not wear the dress and move or even survive. That Leysritt could not wear the dress as her life was the key ingredient for making the dress. But without the dress, we couldn't seal the gate and the Grail. So we needed to sacrifice Leysritt to make the dress. But only a homunculus could wear it. And the only options were Illya or you."

Memories of the last several days flashed through his mind. The long careful walk to the Greater Grail. The whispered conspiracy that he and the two maids had engaged in until they had agreed that they would all rather die than lose Illya in this manner.

"You chose to wear it. Even though you knew that you would be unable to do anything else. That someone else would have to be trusted to carry her. And it could not be Illya. That would make our sacrifice be for nothing." Shirou could see Sella's frustrated expression as she proposed that Shirou be the one to carry her after she put on the Dress of Heaven. "You hated me but you would ally with me in a heartbeat if it meant saving Illya. Because she was the most important person in the world to us."

"Thank you, Sella von Einzbern." Shirou made a decision and laid one hand on Berserker's sword before remembering the other person buried here.

"And Leysritt." Shirou stopped to think about what he could say.

A minute passed.

"I guess I should just go with how you would speak. Something blunt and to the point." Shirou cracked a bitter smile. "Thank you Leysritt. I think you were the one who sacrificed the most as you died not knowing if we succeeded or not. And so, thank you. Thank you for loving my sister above yourself. Thank you for accepting me into Illya's life."

Finding the words within himself, Shirou used a bit of Alteration to carve words into the solid stone.

_Sella von Einzbern & Leysritt von Einzbern_

_We loved her and chose to die for her. May Illyasviel, beloved sister and fun master, enjoy a long, happy, and peaceful life._

Shirou regarded the words.

They weren't good. They missed a lot of what had made the two maids distinct and important.

But it covered what they had given up their lives for.

"May the one we love find someone to love her again," Shirou whispered the words through a choked-up throat.

The wind blew, almost as if it could carry the funeral's words to Illya.

But it couldn't. Shirou had carried Sella forward, hoping to find a way to the Root. After all, if they could find the Root, perhaps they could find a way back home from the Root. There was more than one way to the Root after all.

Only, Shirou hadn't found the Root. Too mindful of preventing even the slightest brush of Sella's clothes, he hadn't paid attention to the steps in front of him. Then he had stumbled and staggered to the side before catching himself and looking up to realize that he was somewhere else. On what looked to a completely different world to tell the truth. A world that seemed bleak and almost uninhabitable.

Except for by the hordes of strange but decidedly hostile black, white, and red monsters that were like nothing Shirou had ever heard of before. Nor had any weapon in his Reality Marble ever killed anything similar. Well, not until he had arrived here at least. Now he had killed several thousand. They held up rather poorly when compared to a Noble Phantasm. He might be an intruder and an alien, but he didn't want to die. Not really.

But even before he had stumbled, Sella's body had long since shut down. She had arrived here as a corpse. But Shirou felt that Sella would have preferred a grave in the earth, rather than her body being lost in the space between worlds. Or maybe she wouldn't have. Shirou didn't know. They hadn't planned or thought about anything beyond going through the gate instead of Illya. It was a rather slapdash, last minute plan.

Saber hadn't liked it. But what could she do?

Shirou had used Rule Breaker to steal her back from the priest and old man while they had competed to see who could fill the Black Grail, which had been in Sakura's body, while keeping it away from the other. And it had been frightening to see just how quickly the remaining Servants, all except for Saber, had fallen to either the former Executor or the Matou.

But even though Rule Breaker had severed the Master-Servant bond between Saber and whoever her Master had been, Shirou had lost his right to be a Master and only one of the Tohsaka, Matou, or Einzbern could take her on as their Servant.

Sorry, Tohsaka, but Shirou liked Illya a bit more than her.

At least she beat out Kirei and Zouken by a landslide, though that had not been of much condolence to the girl who had already lost her last family member.

So Illyasviel had agreed to replace Berserker with Saber as her Servant. And had reluctantly taken Avalon when Shirou had, in an act of selfishness, gave it to her instead of Saber.

Saber would have been a better fit for Avalon. But Saber's corruption and act of betraying Shirou had left her with enough guilt that she had vowed to Shirou that she would stay as Illya's Servant and take care of her for as long as Illya wanted her.

And Shirou believed her. Even after being altered, Saber would never break her vow. It would disgrace her honor as a knight and a king to break her word.

Illya was in good hands now. With Saber at peak power and Avalon keeping Illya alive, Illya would have a long and safe life.

Just not with him.

Shirou let his hand fall and turned away from the gravestone and the body of his companions, letting out an exhale. They had died. Shirou was alive. More importantly, Illyasviel was alive. On a separate world, but alive. She could become happy as long as she was alive.

Shirou let himself dwell in the feelings he had for his sister before shunting them aside.

He didn't know where he was now. It could be a parallel world. It could be a different world. Shirou didn't know.

But Shirou was here and unless he found a new way to the Root, which would take any magus numerous generations of work, he would never find a way back. And Shirou only had one life to work in. Mortality was so constraining. Also, Shirou doubted that he could squeeze multiple lifetimes of work into just one. Otherwise every magus would have already done it and his old world would have been full of True Magicians instead of magi. Regrettably, Shirou recalled True Magicians being decidedly rare.

Furthermore, he didn't think that Illya would wait until he could return. She had certainly not been planning on returning when she said her farewell.

No, there was no way to be at Illya's side now. Shirou had to abandon his love for his sister behind. Just like he had abandoned everything in the Fuyuki Fire, leaving everyone and everything behind and never looking back. Or else his heart would shatter and he would die.

And Shirou didn't want to die. He hadn't…

Hadn't what?

Shirou paused as he thought. He couldn't think of protecting Illya. She was safe now. But he also couldn't turn back to his old dream. He had sacrificed too much to pick it back up. He had chosen to fulfill Father's regrets in being unable to save his daughter. He had discarded his inherited dream in order to fulfill a duty that his father couldn't.

And Shirou didn't think he could bear to pick his dream back up from the trash heap. He couldn't be a hero of justice. Not only had he already discarded it, he wasn't strong enough. He had seen that all too clearly with Archer. And the beautiful dream of that impossible ideal deserved someone who would devote their entire life to it. Not to be second place.

And to be fair, Shirou felt that Kiritsugu would be proud of him. Shirou had saved Illya.

But Shirou needed a new life now. One that wasn't centered around Illya.

Shirou let his eyes fasten onto a distant black castle in the bleak lands that surrounded him.

He didn't know if anyone was there. He figured that if there was someone, they probably would have been killed and enthusiastically eaten by these monsters. They hadn't seemed sentient at all, without even the cunning of Berserker buried underneath his Madness Enhancement.

But just as Shirou needed a new purpose, he needed to find someone. Anyone. Anyone who could help him. Because if there were people, there was food. And Shirou hadn't seen anything edible in these lands. Not even trees. The only hint of anything that could be a sign of life on the horizon was that castle, which for all that Shirou knew, could have been abandoned centuries ago.

But what else could he do?

Shirou took a step towards the castle. Followed by another step.

He had no goal. He had no dream. He had never even once considered "And then what?" when he had pursued his dreams.

And now that his dream of protecting Illyasviel was fulfilled, he didn't know what to do. He felt empty. Empty like a table after Taiga and Saber had finished dinner.

No goal. No purpose.

But alive.

And the only thing he could do was keep on moving. And hope that he could find a new reason to keep on existing for the future.

**Not Heaven's Feel Route. More like a post-Illya route. Has a bunch of similarities to Heaven's Feel but isn't quite the same such as not losing his arm to Sakura's shadow as her mind died before she could rip off his arm. However, I am not writing a story regarding what an Illya route could be. I just want to write a story with a Shirou that went through the gate and has some more crash courses on the history of the magical world and both Illya and Sella taught him a bit to get him up to speed.**

**We will not be seeing the Fate cast again.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Sorry for taking so long. I actually wrote this out a long time ago but then my beta-reader (thanks Ray O'Niell!) pointed out that the characters were OOC, there were holes you could drive a truck through, and that rewriting was a good idea. So I did.**

**I like the rewritten chapters better.**

Chapter 1

Shirou was breathing steadily. One breath in. One breath out. One breath in. One breath out.

The strange black, white and red monsters on the other hand, were snarling and stopped breathing as Shirou's paced assault cut through them, Kanshou and Bakuya proving to be remarkably effective on the parts he could cut.

Shirou had almost reconsidered breaking in when he had seen that the palace was full of monsters. He wasn't really hoping that the palace in the middle of nowhere would help him find people. Until he had noticed that there were security cameras still active and moving. Which meant that there was someone here who could do maintenance.

Which meant life. Either that or a robot rebellion, but given that he had only seen weird monsters that died without leaving anything behind, Shirou was leaning towards a stronghold that had been overran or built by these monsters rather than operated by machines.

Also, he hadn't seen any robots. Just a hint that this world with a broken moon might not have had a machine rebellion like some of the movies that Taiga had watched.

Shirou cut off another limb of a large monster who was slightly smaller than the corridor, which screamed in pain. Or maybe it was it was screaming in its own language something like "My hand! My hand! You cut off my hand! You'll pay for that!"

The other hand coming up only to be sent flying free of the arm would certainly work with the imagined meaning of the scream.

"Sorry," Shirou apologized during his exhale. Proper breathing was important, especially in an endurance fight through the palace hallways. And maybe it wasn't appropriate to apologize but he still wasn't sure if the monsters were sentient or not.

Shirou had tried, but he wasn't able to communicate with any of these monsters and they were very aggressive. So aggressive that Shirou could only assume that they were mindless, despite some of the cunning tactics they had employed against him.

As an example of how aggressive they were, the monster's head lunged forward, rather fast. But to someone who had had to deal with Corrupted Berserker and Saber Alter, it wasn't fast enough.

Shirou dodged aside as his left arm sliced a diagonal cut through its head until it emerged from the neck. The monster, now dead, fell forward, body already starting to dissolve into an odd smoke that smelled like strong magical energy.

By this point, Shirou had started to be able to identify a few things that the smoke did and didn't smell like. It didn't smell like Rider's Bloodfort Andromeda. It didn't smell like Saber or any other regular Servant. It did have a small similarity to a corrupted Servant, like Corrupted Berserker or Saber Alter. Like a touch of rot when Taiga had gone overboard on Easter, hidden some raw eggs outside the fridge as a prank, forgot about them, and they had gone bad until they smelled up the house and were finally thrown away.

Shirou could only assume that these creatures were corrupted Phantasmals. Beings of myths that had once been alive only to be altered. Maybe if he had a proper education instead of a few lessons crammed in by Illya and Sella years after they discovered what Kiritsugu had been able to teach him, most of it theoretical, he might have a better idea of what they could be.

But that was in the past. Now was a time of battle as Shirou turned around and tossed another pair of Noble Phantasms swords through the hallway, culling the black beings that were pouring in behind him while he waited for the one in front to finish dissolving and clear the hallway.

A few seconds passed and Shirou could now go through the spot where the dissolving Phantasmal in front of him had been. Only for another large corrupted being in front of him to howl and charge.

Only for it to die as the flying Kanshou and Bakuya came back, attracted to the pair in his hands, before their momentum carried the free pair of swords past Shirou and cut the monster into thirds. A single stab into the skull and it was dead and dissolving.

Shirou didn't know how many monsters there were in this seemingly abandoned palace there were. But he figured that with this many, there probably wasn't any humans around. Which was odd as every bit of furniture he had seen corresponded to what a human would use.

At long last, Shirou found a large set of doors in the middle of a hallway. Fancy doors that seemed to be as dark as night and carved ornately.

Either he had found the throne room or the local carpenter had really wanted to give his workshop's door the fanciest doors in the entire palace. Given that most kings who built palaces liked their doors to be the most impressive and some kings would throw tantrums which could include words like "Off with his head!" Shirou was more inclined to lean towards the former.

Shirou snapped his wrists to the side, sending the Noble Phantasms down both sides of the hallway, giving him space and the free hands to push open the door.

He stepped inside and stopped even as his blood pumped through his veins from his long fight through the castle.

If he had had any doubt that this was a castle, they were put to rest. There was nothing this room could be other than a throne room. There was the raised dais with a mid-night black throne standing in the center. High in the walls and ceiling were large windows that showed the red sky.

Along the walls, several large nightmarish monsters of many types stood, their bestial eyes weighing on Shirou like they were waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Who dares intrude on my domain?"

Shirou's eyes shot down to the woman on the throne. She was standing up now, revealing that she was tall, possibly taller than him or was that just her presence? Hard to tell from a few feet below her. But Shirou could make out that she had black veins creeping in from the edges of her face, not unlike Illya's Command Seals, only hers were black instead of Illya's red. This woman's hair was grey and her skin seemed like it had lost all color and had gone into an odd shade of gray.

"Umm, sorry for the mess," Shirou apologized as he caught just one paired iteration of his two preferred swords and dissolved the other pairs. "I didn't know who was home but I am kind of hoping that you could direct me to somewhere. Like any civilization?"

"You are lost?" the woman asked, her brow slightly rising to convey disbelief. "I have not heard of any vehicle approaching my land."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Shirou shifted uncomfortably. Should he put his weapons away or…

"Explain." It was an order. He remembered Saber giving a few in the same tone. Like, 'cook lunch'. 'Make more hamburgers.'

"Well," Shirou wondered just how much he should explain. Should he say that he was from another world, one where the moon had not cracked like someone had slammed a large bullet into it?

Then again what benefit would he gain anything by keeping quiet about it? He couldn't think of any. And given that this world had monsters he had never seen before all over the place, any attempt to say that he was native to here would be uncovered very quickly.

"I was trying to find a way back to my home after closing the Gate to the Holy Grail, but I stumbled and ended up here."

There. Secrecy of magecraft kept in case the woman didn't know of magic. If she knew what the Holy Grail was, she wouldn't ask and he would know she was a magus. If she didn't know, she would ask and he would tell her something fit for someone who didn't know of magic.

The woman was silent for a moment.

"I do know not of what you mean as there is neither an artifact beyond what I possess nor a gate in these lands," the woman loomed ominously against the light. "Tell the truth now."

Well, that made sense. Shirou gulped. It didn't look like there was much in these lands. Very little greenery meant that civilization would have no reason to be here.

"Well, I might not have started in these lands?" Shirou ventured.

The woman waited, a tad impatiently if Shirou was right. If she was right, then such a statement was obvious.

"Okay," he gave in. The truth was always easier to remember than a lie if Shinji had been correct. "I think I might be from another world as the moon I remember wasn't broken."

"Is that so?" The woman asked, settling down into her throne. "Did one of the Brothers send you?"

Shirou blinked and furrowed his brow. The Brothers? What brothers were she referring to?

"No," Shirou shook his head, making sure not to close his eyes in case one of the monsters took it as a sign of weakness. "I came here with one companion but we chose to embark on this without anyone else telling us to."

Due to the lighting, Shirou couldn't tell if she tensed up at the mention of his companion but he thought she might have.

"Who?"

"My sister's maid," Shirou replied. "She was named Sella but died before I even got here."

"A maid?" The woman sounded somewhat surprised. "Not a man with a cane?"

"No, she never used a cane," Shirou denied. "And the only man we knew that used a cane was Zouken Matou. He is dead, I think."

It had taken a lot to kill the ancient man. But Shirou thinks he was dead for good now. Hopefully. It might have finally taken the last time? Zouken hadn't shown up when he and Sella had gone through the Grail and he would have if he had been alive.

"Zouken, Matou." The women muttered those names while looking like she was trying to place them. Without any flash of remembrance, the queen-like figure straightened up on her throne and declared. "Very well. I will give you passage to civilization. But what will you offer in recompense?"

Ah, the old equivalent exchange. The sad thing was, Shirou didn't have anything he could offer. His swords weren't of much value as they would break when damaged. And it felt cheap to offer to trade them. Well, if he didn't have anything else…

"I could fix some things up around here," he offered as he let his swords disappear now that they were negotiating. Issei had always mentioned how much his repair work had saved the school. "Maybe even cook something."

"Fix up the areas you damaged?" The woman countered. Shirou winced. Yeah, that was on him.

"I'll do those free of charge," he surrendered. They were his fault anyway. "But there has to be some stuff around here that you need help with."

"I do not," she said rising to her feet and walking down the steps to her throne. Her black dress slid along the ground.

Shirou winced at the thought of how much grime she must get on that. Fortunately, he managed to catch his tongue before he offered to wash her dress for her.

Bad things lay down that route. Bad things. Even he wasn't quite that stupid to explicitly offer to wash a woman's clothes without them (Taiga) pushing it onto him.

"Boy, give me your name."

"Shirou, Shirou Emiya." Shirou introduced himself. "And you?"

"I am Salem, Queen of the Grimm," The queen reached the bottom of the steps and with a gesture referred to the monsters around the room.

"But there are other matters that you may assist with," she continued, her face passing into the light for once.

Shirou blinked. Her skin was white. Not a white that he had seen even on foreigners or people who overdid make-up, no, it was a white that looked like it would surpass white-out. Even her white hair was greyer than her skin.

But her eyes, her red glowing irises with a black backdrop, was distinctly not human. Also, she had some black veins across her face and as the light flashed across her arm, Shirou could see that the same black veins extended down to her fingertips.

"I have an enemy," the woman continued walking across the throne room. "A servant of powers beyond your comprehension that oppose me, though they do not bother to face me anymore. Instead, their _champion_" the word was spat with hatred. "seeks to fight me. To deny me the right to have his masters face their greatest mistake and admit their fault."

Shirou wondered if she was cursed or something. But maybe humanity here just evolved differently. Or she was not a biological human. Not that it mattered to Shirou. Illya and her maids were homunculi and some people would call them not human.

However, this woman didn't look all that different from the monsters here. While they looked like corrupted animals, she looked more human. And then there was those black veins that looked a bit like Illya's command Seals. Speaking of Command Seals,

"By any chance, do you have a Servant?" Shirou asked, interrupting her spiel. Was the Grail also here? Was there a Grail War going on?

The woman stopped her advance at his question.

"My servants are out on other matters," she dismissed. "Dealing with my enemy and making preparations. What I would desire is assistance in their endeavors."

So there was a Grail War going on. Or possibly over if she was speaking of multiple Servants. However, Shirou didn't think anyone could support multiple Servants. But Illya was strong enough to support Berserker so maybe this woman could support multiple weaker Servants. He didn't know.

"Well, that depends on what you intend to do with it," Shirou responded, folding his arms. He had no intention of helping anyone destroy the world, humanity, or anything like that with the Grail.

"What are you capable of?" Queen Salem asked in return. "Everyone has their specialty. Yours is apparently combat which, as you have discovered against my Grimm, is a valuable skill in this world."

"Well, I can do some fighting," Shirou cautiously agreed. "I also have some magical ability. Not much, but enough to help support a Servant."

"Truly?" The woman raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. "You possess magical traits? Despite such things being lost from this iteration of mankind, you would claim the power of magic for your own?"

Shirou winced. Ouch. He had assumed that magic was known here due to her supporting Servants. Somehow, he had stumbled into a trap in wordplay and given away that…

Wait. Hold on. Magic was lost from this iteration of mankind yet she supports multiple Servants? What does that mean?

Well, being blunt hadn't hurt him too much in the past.

"Sorry, what did you say?" Shirou asked. "Magic is lost from this iteration of mankind? As in, it existed in the past and is no longer in the present?"

The woman eyed him, some caution in her eyes.

"A Semblance is _not_ magic," the queen stated as definitively as Sella would have while colored balls of fire, water, earth and other things appeared floating in the air around her. "The more tangible manifestation of one's Aura, no matter how versatile does not compare to the versatility or power of magic. Whom taught you that a Semblance and Aura was magic?"

"No one," Shirou replied honestly. "I have no clue what you mean by aura or semblance. My dad taught me some magecraft and I practiced it on my own until my sister helped me to learn some more but I was told we used magic circuits, foundations, and the reenactment of Mystery."

For a long moment, the woman considered what Shirou had said.

"Are you perhaps trained in a school or discipline of magic?" Salem asked. "If so, say the name."

"School of magic?" Shirou furrowed his brow. "You mean like Material Transmutation? I am not very good but I can do Reinforcement, Structural Analysis, Projection, and my unique spell, Tracing. I was taught the basics for Alteration but haven't had time to refine that yet."

Compared to Illya and Rin, or even Sella, Shirou was a failure of a magus. Something that Illya had despaired of when she had discovered his limitations and set about to correct with intensive teaching. Though, the later discovery of his potential Reality Marble and ability to Trace and copy Noble Phantasms had redeemed his lack of versatility in Illya's opinion.

This queen on the other hand was actually impressed if Shirou was reading her ascended eyebrows right.

"Not possible," she spoke to herself. "No single Semblance could do all those. Transmuting should be possible of most of those feats but analyzing the structure would be beyond a single Semblance if the names are honest indications of the spells."

Her red and black eyes snapped onto Shirou's, a terrible majesty and hope filling them.

"How did you escape the Brother of Darkness's wrath?" Salem demanded. "Furthermore, the time elapsed should be enough to cause death in any survivor from my age. How are you still alive?"

"Who?"

The two stared at each other. She was looking a tad frustrated, Shirou was just feeling a tinge of frustration and a lot of confusion.

"Never mind the God of Darkness for now. Give me a demonstration of your abilities," The queen demanded instead. "We will determine your history at a later time."

"Alright," Shirou agreed, putting aside the question about gods for later. He needed to negotiate for passage to civilization and his skills were the only thing he had to bargain with besides his clothes but he kind of needed those. Also, Salem was a woman and Shirou didn't think she would want his slightly damaged clothes. Shirou hadn't chosen his clothes to go well with fashion, just utility.

But what to start with?

There weren't any weapons in the throne room. Made sense considering how most rulers didn't like to assassinated on their throne so depriving everyone but the royal guard of weapons was a survival trait. In fact, this room was rather sparse of everything except monsters.

Hadn't he passed a stone statue with a sword and an empty hand in the castle? That could make a good start for projection.

"Trace on," Shirou began, his 27 green circuits flaring to life across his body.

The woman blinked in recognition as the stone object dropped to the ground in front of him.

"The statue was made 485 years ago," Shirou began relaying the facts that his structural analysis had told him from his earlier scan on the object. Admittedly, most of the history part was from the sword, but the statue's internal structure hadn't had any gaps or edges that indicated it hadn't been made as a single whole piece with the sole exception of the empty hand. "Made of stone, it was carved out of Glauconite, a weird and fragile choice of rocks to carve from but was delicately made and carefully handled for the duration of its existence. It is a solid piece, with the sole exception of the empty hand, which is mechanically complex for the intent of holding the missing object. Further, on the ring finger, is a single use switch meant for releasing whatever it was holding in the empty hand. Judging by the magical contamination, I am guessing that the object it was holding was a magical artifact or Mystic Code, possibly a Noble Phantasm. At some point a tad over 80 years ago, the switch was triggered and the object released."

"Are you able to identify which Relic it held?" Queen Salem asked interestedly.

"No," Shirou shook his head. "It is no longer here and I cannot analyze what doesn't exist. All I can tell is that it was magical and had a cylindrical section made for easy gripping."

"It was the Sword of Destruction," the Queen informed. "Carefully hidden so that no one would suspect that the large sword was a fake and the real one part of that statue. I only learned it myself after the end of the Great War and had one of my servants steal it from the Museum of Vale as a reminder of how my foe can hide what I seek."

"Huh," Shirou commented. "Ominous name. Is there more you would like to know?"

"Your analysis was sufficient," Salem refuted. "As was your magical copy of the statue. What are your other spells in magic?"

"Well," Shirou picked up the statue and furrowed his brow in concentration. While his success rate had jumped significantly over the course of the Grail War, he still struggled with Reinforcing sometimes. It would be embarrassing to fail here and explode the statue or have it fall apart when he didn't mean to. "Reinforcement allows me to enhance an object's meaning of existence. So I can use it like this."

Reinforcement successfully complete, the third-rate magus swung the semi-heavy statue down at the ground, the fragile statue's sword cutting through the carpet and the stone underneath rather than breaking into a hundred pieces like it would have if Shirou hadn't strengthened it.

"That is three of your five spells," Salem noted as she eyed the gash. "Furthermore, please fix that cut in the carpet or I'll add it onto the bill of damages you did to my castle."

"Oops," Shirou winced. He hadn't meant to damage the carpet. Just got a little nervous over displaying his abilities.

"Continue." She ordered.

"Well, I am still working on Alteration," Shirou began. "It adds a property to something that it didn't originally have but I still fail more times than succeed at my current skill level."

"Demonstrate regardless. I will judge what I perceive." Salem directed.

"Alright…" Shirou said as he looked around for something to change. Alteration needed something already in existence. Well, he could easily alter one of his swords, but that would probably be taken as cheating.

The room was rather sparse of things that he could freely transform. Well, he could use the carpet or stone but Salem hadn't liked him damaging the carpet.

"Use this." The queen and apparently magus ordered as a slab of rock suddenly erupted from the ground.

"Alright." Shirou carefully exhaled and inhaled as he laid his hands on the stone. He paused to wipe some sweat off of his brow before it could risk dripping into his eye.

Focusing his attention, Shirou decided to go for the option most likely to work. Namely, adding the property of sword to the rock. It shouldn't fail. Rocks became swords all the time. They were just usually made of metal or were wielded by giant, super-powerful demi-gods that had no problem with using the rock sword to pulp Shirou's spine.

Increasing the output of magical energy from his Circuits, Shirou carefully added the concept of sword to the rock, noticing that as he did, it slowly morphed and altered shape, veins of rock condensing into layers of blade while the bottom turned into the hilt and pommel-

SNAP! Tink. Tink. Tink.

It failed. The rock rejected the concept of sword and broke into a hundred pieces. Fortunately without any real force behind them or else it would have shredded Shirou's face and body from standing at ground zero. No, it just fell apart like leaves from a tree when autumn came.

Tink.

Shirou winced, his newest spell failing. That wouldn't be a good mark for his evaluation.

"The other?" was all Salem said in evaluation even as the queen used her magic to sink the rock and its shards back into the ground.

"Tracing…" Shirou trailed off as he tried to find the best words to describe it. "It is like a better version of Projection, with a few extra steps that make the object more durable and stable."

The projected statue broke apart into magical energy as it was finally crushed by the Human Order's opposition to magic.

"I'm best at using it with weapons," Shirou continued. "Also, I accidentally created the spell so any faults in it are still being worked on."

"Demonstrate," the lady ordered, little patience for his humble warnings.

"Well," Shirou hesitated. He had remembered something. Something that Kirei Kotomine had addressed while talking about how he, Shirou, and Kiritsugu were all alike in their curses by Angra Mainyu itself. _'The most delectable of curses are those we cannot see eating others away.' _

And the cursed fire and mud of the Grail was bad enough. If Shirou could help someone escape their own, it would be worth doing in its own right. While she could get angry at the assumption of being cursed, there was no reward without any risk.

"Say," Shirou began, playing off on his hunch. "This is pretty rude and out of the blue, but are you cursed?"

It was a long shot. She might just be a normal human and the black lines and similarity to the monsters were normal here while Shirou was the abnormal one. But Shirou hadn't heard of a Grail War going well. Then again, he had only heard of two or three, all of which were influenced by Servant Avenger from the Third Grail War.

But people got somewhat passionate about getting their wish granted and would go to extremes to do so. Shinji, Kirei, and several Servants had demonstrated that very clearly in the Grail War. Passionate enough to hurt others. Passionate enough to curse others.

The woman's eyes narrowed in anger and the air around her took on a dangerous feeling.

"I am." She affirmed. "What business is it of yours?"

"Trace On." Shirou projected the Noble Phantasm of Caster, Medea, the witch of Betrayal. Not that it had been of much use as Archer had cut her down before Zouken Matou could get much use out of her defiled corpse.

Rule Breaker shimmered into Shirou's hand, his hand automatically closing to clasp the weapon.

"This is Rule Breaker," Shirou informed as he held it out for Salem to see. "It is a dagger made to be used against bonds of a magical nature. It returns anything to its state prior to being affected by magic. It might be able to work on your curse."

"You want to stab me with a magical dagger?" Salem asked incredulously. "Do I look like a fool?"

The last words were shouted at Shirou who felt like a strong foul wind had bodily slammed into him like one of Taiga's Yakuza friends playing a contact sport.

"Well, it is the only way for it to work," Shirou defended the tool. "And I can use it on myself first if you would like."

The air seemed to calm down slightly at his offer. But Shirou felt like it was more like the eye of the storm. A period of calm surrounded by danger on every side, only one step away.

"Such an offer is pointless," Salem rejected. "It is possible for magic to activate upon a trigger. Using it on yourself first will simply prove nothing."

She was no idiot. If this Shirou Emiya was intent on doing her harm, he could stab himself with the dagger and the magical effect wouldn't take place. Meanwhile as soon as he turned it on her, she would be hit by the magic.

And she was convinced that Shirou Emiya was a mage. Possibly an ignorant one from an earlier time than she had been born or possibly from another world as he had said. The magical lines across his body that had flared to life instead of his soul's Aura was evidence enough that he wasn't using Aura. She had heard of people who had similar signs of magic back when she was young. Albeit, the eyes, the window to the soul and the brain, were the most common aspect to display the signs of magic usage.

Coupled with the ability to understand something, Material Transmutaion—which would be an odd term but again, different school of magic than the ones she had learned—and the ability to conjure magical weapons from somewhere else was simply too versatile for a Semblance.

"No, you will use it on me." Salem decided. If the dagger killed her, then she would come back to life from the Brother of Light's curse. If it put her under his control like the one of the fairy tale curses she had read of back in her tower, then she was certain she could dispel it off with her own magic. If it did something else, she could cure it. And if it worked as he said, if it could actually remove her curse of immortality…

That would make it worth it. That would end her miserable existence that had stretched on for far, far too long.

The boy's expression flashed surprise. Had he expected her to refuse? Fool. She was the premier mage of this day. A boy with five spells, even one with an armory of magical weapons, was no match for her, who had pushed the limits of magic to their furthest limit in an effort to rid herself of her curse.

Gliding forward, Salem approached the boy who belatedly moved towards her as well.

Now within lunging range of the child mage, Salem spread her arms in invitation.

"Begin." She ordered.

"Um, your arm please?" The boy said.

She held out her grey skinned, black veined arm for him to use. He grabbed it with his free hand and hovered his dagger over the underside of her arm.

"Rule Breaker." He said definitively and ran a light slice across her arm.

That was it? Just a slice?

Then the magical energy roared through her as the dagger took effect. Instinctively, she raised her magic to defend herself but the dagger ignored it as if it wasn't there.

Salem clenched her teeth before the pain peaked and she threw back her head _and screamed. _

The magic ravaged her. It coursed through every vein, flooded her heart, pooled in her lungs and throat like acid, poured through her bones, pushed outwards from every bit of muscle and fat she possessed, and lit up every nerve of her being from the tips of her fingers and toes all the way up to her brain.

Salem's scream cut off as the pain grew to be too much, the involuntary jerking of her body turning her throat off as she fell back, only for the boy's grip on her arm to keep her upright.

If Salem had to compare the pain to anything, it was when she channeled a lightning bolt through her entire body in a futile attempt to find release from a lonely immortality.

But the pain continued, unlike the lightning. It had fried her and killed her in an instant but this suffering _didn't stop_.

She wasn't dying. She was alive. Life hurt. Death was a release. One that couldn't keep her but it caused the pain to cease until she returned to life again.

Salem's mind battled through the agony, every relative minute stretching on for eternity. She was immortal. She knew eternity. And this pain filled these endless seconds.

And then it was over.

Salem breathed hard as her body seemed to scream for release, not realizing that the pain was done.

"What was that, boy!" She demanded, straightening herself to stand on her own power. Her justified anger burned against him who looked on at her in mistaken worry. Only rarely had she suffered such agony. Only her most painful of deaths could compare to this. She raised her arm to point at him, calling on her magic to punish the one who had hurt her so. "You dare to-"

She stopped, her words vanishing from her tongue like ice-cream around kids as she saw her own arm.

Her arm.

It was white.

Not the white of a Grimm. No, it was white skin. The white she hadn't seen since-

She brought her hand to her hair and pulled it in front of her eyes.

Not white. Blond. Her hair was not the hair of a Grimm.

She was- She was-

Couldn't be. She couldn't be.

A spell changed the air in front of her to being reflective so she could see her own appearance.

Blue eyes. Blond hair. White skin. Black dress. No black veins anywhere to be seen.

Not a Grimm.

No, she was human again.


	3. Chapter 2

**Thanks to Ray O'Neill for his help in beta-reading. The story would be a complete mess without him.**

Chapter 2

Salem stared at her reflection, her mind stunned and her emotions suddenly tired.

She was human.

No longer did she constantly have negative emotions consuming her. No longer was her anger continuously burning in her chest. No longer was despair a black pit in her stomach, consuming everything above it. No longer was her annoyance prickling at her, an irritation that she had forgotten even existed.

Instead she felt… tired. Like she had been carrying a heavy burden for far too long.

It wasn't anything she hadn't felt before. After her transformation, she had learned to discern her more positive or neutral emotions from her negative ones but never had they been so…overwhelming. Never without the constant anger, despair, rage, and hatred.

Salem swayed on her feet as her mind and heart reeled from such an utter transformation. It was as significant as when she had been thrown into the fountain of life. Or when she had tried to drown in the Grimm pool. Only, those had been, so very, very, very long ago. Even for her, those memories were almost distant.

Almost, except she remembered them. She couldn't forget those memories. The lowest points of her life. When she had lost everything.

Oh, there was her negative emotions. Her anger, her rage, her despair. Only instead of being crisp and fierce, they were tired. Worn-out emotions that had been sustained for millennia on end. She had forgotten that emotions weren't supposed to be carried for that long. That humans clinging to a single emotion for years on end only warped their soul…

"Are you alright?" A voice cut through her introspection. Salem looked up to see that, past her own reflection, the red-head a step closer, arm held halfway between down and up, looking at her with worry.

Realizing that she had forgotten she wasn't alone, Salem refused to collapse to the ground. Not that she had been going to anyway. That had been old Salem. She would have viewed collapsing in response to overwhelming grief as a good thing. No, this Salem was strong.

Okay, she was really tired and wouldn't mind taking some time to adjust to being human again but she refused to show any weakness. She would not be weak again. Never again.

However, this Shirou Emiya had just done the impossible. Freed her from her curse. Something that she would have sold her soul to receive and counted it as a discounted bargain.

Except, was she mortal? She was human and no longer Grimm but, she had been human after the Brothers had destroyed Remnant. Just an immortal one.

That said, the boy had done her a service that left her in his debt. And if it could remove the effects of one pool, perhaps it had removed the other. And if it had not, then she at least had an idea of what she could do to get rid of it. A stronger version of his dagger. She could enchant one. Even though she didn't know how this dagger was enchanted, she was sure of it. She had cast more difficult spells before.

"My gratitude-" Salem began only to be cut off by a growl. Followed by another. And several more.

Both humans turned to different sides of the throne room. Where her personal Grimm guard were crouching, bodies ready to attack, malice in their eyes.

_Ah,_ Salem realized. _I am no longer Queen of the Grimm. The Grimm no longer recognize me._

As if the thought had been a signal, the Grimm collectively screeched and roared as one and attacked!

* * *

Shirou was worried. He had never seen Rule Breaker in action. But he wasn't sure if Salem screaming from being in that much pain was a good thing. It didn't seem like a good thing. It looked like it hurt as much as getting in-between an angry Berserker and a blast from Excalibur. Only without the being disintegrated down into atoms part.

But from the expression of utter pain on her face and the sound of her agonized cry, she might prefer being disintegrated.

Shirou caused the copy of Rule Breaker to fall apart, hoping that if the agent of the change would be gone, so would the suffering too.

Salem didn't seem to notice, her agony not abating a bit by the breaking of the illusion of Rule Breaker.

Shirou let go of her arm, and wrenched his torso and head around, looking desperately for anything to help. He hadn't thought Rule Breaker would do this. That it could do this.

Suddenly she stopped, her face and shoulders relaxing from her head-thrown back position.

Shirou turned back to her and blinked.

She looked different. She no longer had white hair, her skin was a healthier shade and her eyes were a human blue instead of black and red.

Huh. Looks like a curse would change a person's appearance.

"What was that, boy! You dare to-" She demanded of him with mounting anger. Shirou could only guess why. Maybe a few moments of unexpected excruciating torture were justifiably worth getting upset over. If so, best to weather the storm, even if he hadn't known beforehand how much it would hurt.

She stopped, her eyes locked onto her arm. Slowly, as if she had been hit over the head by a pommel of a sword—again, sorry Illya— she hesitantly brought one hand up to her own now blonde hair before dragging it to before her disbelieving face.

She stayed like that for a second before suddenly the air in between them shimmered and Shirou could see his own reflection.

Wow, that was better than projecting a mirror. Maybe she was a first-rate magus. In that case, he really didn't have much to offer her in exchange for passage. Anything he could do, she could probably do better.

Well, if you excluded his swords. But given that nothing but monsters could live here and these monsters weren't hostile, she didn't really need them, did she?

Well, she had a Holy Grail War and something about a champion of her enemies and that. She probably could use him. But Shirou didn't know if he wanted to get involved in another Grail War so soon. Not when he had only just buried Sella and Leysritt today. Not when he hadn't even recovered from the last.

Also, he didn't have a desire for the Grail. Other than going back to Illya but there were bound to be better desires for the Grail than that. And did he really deserve to go back after abandoning Illya?

Shirou glanced down at his hands, but didn't see any bruises or cuts or Command Seals that might indicate that he was one of the Masters selected. Ah well. It wasn't like he knew how to summon a Servant on purpose anyway. Illya had decided to skip that as it was pretty useless after the Grail had summoned its full complement of seven Servants.

Also, he didn't have a reference book to draw out a summoning circle. Sort of hard to summon a Servant without the summoning circle.

Behind her mirror of air, the queen suddenly swayed on her feet.

Shirou reflexively stepped forward but hesitated before reaching out. The last time he had touched her, he had caused her harm so should he touch her now? Would she accept help from him when he had hurt her?

"Are you alright?" Shirou asked instead.

Stupid question, he berated himself. Of course she wasn't. Her curse had just been dispelled, she had suffered horrible agony, and she was quite possibly in shock.

The air shimmered and the reflection vanished and Shirou could see her face again. She was still bearing the look of a person who just got surprised and was trying to get reality to cope with her mind. But she also looked…tired. Yeah, that was the word for that look. Tired and worn out.

She opened her mouth and Shirou slightly tensed up in preparation for a well-deserved reaming.

"My gratitude-" the queen said with a still disbelieving look in her eyes before growls cut her off.

Shirou's eyes snapped to the side at where the giant black monsters were decidedly hostile. Makes sense. He had just attacked the one person in the room that they had tolerated. Assuming that these creatures were the Grimm that the queen had said she was queen over-

On second thought, he was surprised they hadn't attacked already.

Then one leaped at him with a snarl as the rest followed suit with their own roars.

Or they could have just been waiting for him to realize that he was in trouble.

Shirou glanced aside at Salem who bore a look of dawning realization. Should he defend himself? If they were her royal guard then she could probably instruct them on what to do with him. If they were going to arrest him, he could accept that. He had taken hospitality and injured the mistress of the castle.

Okay, he had attacked the castle first so maybe it was more like attacking while under a flag of truce or during parlay. Either way, he had messed up.

But if they were going to kill him and Salem was going to let it happen, then Shirou would fight. He didn't want to die. Even if he didn't have anything to live for, he wasn't quite ready to give up on everything.

"Stop!" The order from the queen rang out followed by an explosion of magical power as Salem destroyed the foremost Grimm? —if that was what they were—that charged her.

None of them stopped.

Shirou tensed as he realized that he might have gotten involved in a coup. Or worse, he had broken a magical contract between the queen and her subjects. And Rule Breaker was well suited to breaking contracts. Or they could be magical constructs, more similar to his own projections rather than familiars. Only much more complex and biological than his swords. That would explain why they evaporated upon death.

But if he was responsible for this, then he ought to bear responsibility and protect the woman.

"Trace on," Shirou snapped out, Kanshou and Bakuya falling into his ready hands. Throwing the first set in opposite directions, he managed to slice clean through one monster's white skull while the monster in the other path ducked underneath before lunging at Shirou with a snarl.

It didn't like the greeting of Kanshou's tip to the snout but hey, it was either it or him.

Then the rest of the rouge Grimm were upon Shirou and Salem. But both Shirou's few swords and as much power as Rin could output was returned upon them.

Dozens of Grimm died, more to Salem than to Shirou but Shirou was tired while Salem was fresh. Also, explosions of magic tended to be more destructive than most swords. Furthermore, while Shirou had paced himself for the last while once he had figured out how to kill the Grimm monsters efficiently, he hadn't eaten since, well, he wasn't sure as he just might have crossed time zones while traveling between worlds, but his last meal and drink of water was a long time ago.

Shirou's thrown blade cut down another monster Grimm and pulled one of the other flying pairs towards it, arcing through another creature and killing it too. A large black fist swung at him only for it to miss as one of Shirou's Kanshou sliced through its leg.

Shirou noted that but refused to wince. Saber had taught him better than to flinch, wince, or react in combat. However, this was still an experimental style that he was perfecting. He had seen Archer do it but it was lot trickier than it looked. As such, it was perfectly fine that he had missed the arm he had been aiming for but got the leg instead.

Shirou intended to ignore the gashes in the walls from all the blades that had gotten too far from him. On the bright side, he was learning a lot. On the downside, he didn't think he would be getting out of debt to Salem anytime soon.

Now would have been a good time to know the repair spell that Rin had proclaimed as common knowledge, Illya. Yes, he knew that Sella was supposed to start teaching him that after the box of breakable swords arrived tomorrow—was tomorrow even the right term now? It could be yesterday for all he knows—but she had come down with a terminal case that wasn't conductive to lessons and he was skipping class on a different planet.

Good thing Taiga doesn't know.

Shirou mentally reprimanded himself. He was in the middle of a battle. He couldn't be letting himself be distracted. Even if his legs were burning, he was sweating all over, and his arms slightly trembling, he was currently throwing around half a dozen Kanshou and Bakuya in three dimensions rather than just the forward and back direction he had used in the hallways.

One hand caught a Kanshou only for the nearest Bakuya to try to return to the same hand. Unfortunately, before Shirou could get his arm out of the way fully, it nicked his sleeve.

Yeah, he really needed to practice more. Other than outside of battle with monsters whose jaws were half the size of him. How had Archer figured out how to do this trick without accidentally stabbing himself in the back?

Shirou ducked a bite attack and thrust upwards into the brain, letting go and leaving the sword there for a second. In that bit of time, he twisted around to catch another sword before throwing it at a monster striking at Salem's back. A split second before the blade could hit though, a burst of fire incinerated it into ash.

Salem was good. Better than Rin at combat, Shirou determined. Rin was okay but she sometimes lacked awareness as Archer had had to protect her a few times. Didn't matter if you were an excellent magus if you weren't aware of a threat to begin with.

Shirou chose to ignore how often he was the one being protected because he failed to notice one of Zouken's bugs sneaking up on him. But Salem was aware of everyone, much like how a Servant was aware of everyone on a battlefield. Was this the difference between Shirou and an elite fighter or magus? If so, then Shirou still had a way to go.

Shirou's hand snapped back to catch the sword falling from the now broken apart Grimm before carving through the wing of a hippogriff-like monster and into its spine. It shrieked and tried to twist around to bite at Shirou except its beak bounced off of the flat of the Noble Phantasm.

Shirou tossed the sword to his other hand to better throw it at a monster that was attacking behind another Grimm, counting the one in front to take the first blow and let it strike down its former queen.

A cunning but brutal tactic. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work as both of them were dead as both sword and spell sheared through them like a sword through paper. And by that he meant the paper used for screen doors, not the type that went fluttering when dropped. The second would have been more like a flying swallow than one of these monsters.

But more of them were scrounging, leaping and running for them. There was only so much space around both Shirou and Salem to be occupied and the medium to large monsters were packed in close as they each sought to be in one of those spots. Of course, that only mean that queen Salem's spells often consumed more than one monster and Shirou's flying blades often cut through more than one per arc.

Unfortunately, Shirou hissed as Bakuya almost sliced through his shoulder, the large swarm meant that Shirou couldn't see where all of his copies were slicing and dicing but not making Julian fries. Unable to see where each one was made predicting where each Kanshou or Bakuya would be pulled towards a tad more difficult.

A scream of feminine rage sounded from the woman and a large force slammed into Shirou. Unprepared, Shirou felt his feet leave the earth and go up and away. Hard-won experience with Taiga had him instinctively tuck and prepare to roll but what had happened to Salem?

Shirou rolled once, noticed that he was close to the wall and sprung up, turning into a flip and landing the soles of his feet on the wall. Already applied Reinforcement gave him the strength to kick off and rocket back towards the sole woman in the room.

She didn't look injured at all as she stood there, arms crossed high across her chest. But she now stood alone as each and every black, white and red monster was occupied by slamming into walls all over the room.

CRASH!

And a window too.

Shirou considered commenting that he wouldn't be letting that be taken out of his hopeful paycheck but this was just a respite as several of the monsters were apparently a lot sturdier when slammed into rather than when sliced into by a Noble Phantasm. And both Saber and Taiga had painfully drummed it into his skull that you did not stop to talk when sparring. Even Kiritsugu had thrown in a comment to that effect when Shirou had been a high school Taiga's training dummy sparring partner.

Shirou reached Salem first and took a stance at her back, eyes glancing over the room in hopes of finding his projected swords. But when every moving thing was made from the colors of a dark and evil American flag, it was hard to find swords that were red, white, and black.

Ah well. He'll just let them dissolve and not worry about throwing off his aim. Bit of a pity as he wasn't sure how many more projections he could do. A dozen projections of weak noble phantasms he would guess if he didn't mind spending the rest of the day unable to fight without strongly risking killing himself from lack of magical energy.

Cutting the link he had to his copies hidden somewhere in the room, Shirou pulled two more out of his Reality Marble, reducing his capacity to fight a bit more. But being unarmed was even worse.

"Enough!" the queen's voice cut through the room like a mother discovering her children in mischief. Though usually, the mother didn't follow up her shout by killing every other living being other than herself and the person standing at her back with dozens of black hands grasping and crunching throats by the scores.

Shirou carefully scanned the room, looking for anything overlooked. No monsters moving, no swords, just monsters twitching as their life bled out of them.

Then one screech as the one that went flying out a window swooped back in, anger burning bright in its eyes. Well, in its eyes until one eye got a sword impaled into it and the rest of the creature froze in a purple aura that cracked limbs and joints until it finished dying.

Now the room was silent. And as the black mist evaporated and spread, Shirou could see that despite the many crack and scratches in the walls, there was nothing else left.

"I gave you life," Salem hissed from Shirou's back. "And you dare to turn on me? Like _this_?"

"Sorry?" Shirou asked as he took a few steps away and turned around, uncertain whether apologizing would make the situation better or worse.

"Yes, you are." Salem said snippily as she spun on her heels to face him, her arms still crossed over her chest. She leveled an angry blue eye onto Shirou.

Shirou dropped his gaze meekly getting ready for his reaming for destroying her magical constructs.

"However, it only makes sense," the queen sighed in reluctant resignation. "My, what is a good word, 'curse' as you called it, had some side effects that I found to be of remarkable utility. I should have expected that breaking the curse would result in those side effects being removed. To blame you for that would be folly on my part."

Shirou blinked.

He looked up, shock ringing through him. He had just inflicted a painful bond removal effect onto the queen, caused her subjects to impromptu revolt, and damaged her throne room while bothering her for directions, and she wasn't going to ream him out for it?

Was she even nicer than Rin? Even Illya hadn't been this nice until after she had nearly killed him once or twice and demanded that he spend several days playing with her and making up for Dad not being there for her!

Wait, they shouldn't be his example of a typical magus. Sella hadn't liked him but she had been kind to Illya. Sakura had turned out to be a magus and she was nice. It was just tragic that Zouken had warped her into a tool for destroying Fuyuki in the course of obtaining his wish. He wished he could have prevented that from happening but by the time he knew, it was too late and he didn't know what could have been done to stop it anyway.

"Really?" Before Shirou could get his hopes up, he noticed that the blond woman in the black dress still had her arms folded tight. Like her words were saying one thing and her body language another. Just like if he had forgotten to feed Saber lunch before a practice session. She said she wasn't angry but the materialization of her armor, body language, and smile, aided by the intensely rapid subsequent formation of bruises said otherwise.

He instantly felt wariness return, coursing through him like a river of self-preservation.

"Well, if you insist on taking responsibility-" Salem started, her fingers tapping one arm idly as if she was in thought.

Shirou did not trust that look.

"No, no, I'm good," he rushed to say. "If you forgive me, then I am happy to receive it."

"Then it is settled." The queen said and Shirou was not so selfless as to contest a free get-out-of-jail card. "Now, where were we?"

A loud grumbling noise growled through the air.

Shirou glanced down to this stomach and while it felt tight from hunger, it didn't quite feel like the contractions that came from a growl of the stomach. But if it wasn't him, then—

He involuntarily raised his eyes up to see a light blush on the queen's face. But her eyes fixed on his, _daring_ him to make a comment.

"If you don't mind letting me, I can whip some food up," Shirou offered. "It won't be up to your standard but it should at least be something."

He had some confidence in his cooking. After all, he had fed Saber and she was a king. She hadn't complained about taste until she was altered and just wanted hamburgers.

His own stomach now plaintively added in its own request for sustenance like a hungry cat, of either the lion or tiger variety.

"Very well," Salem agreed with a sharp nod. "You may do so."

"Thank you," Shirou hesitated before deciding that he had never bowed before to royalty so he wasn't too sure how deep would be deep enough and how much would just be mocking. So how deep should he bow? Or should he just take the cowardly option to not bow and avoid the question?

Eh, sometimes being brave wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Instead of bowing, Shirou turned around and strode towards the doors, putting the question behind him. But what should he make? Well, first he'd should get some water to drink as his throat was rather parched. But what ingredients would he have to work with?

Walking out the door, Shirou stopped theorizing about what kind of foods Salem seemed like she would eat and turned around as he realized he forgot the important question.

"Pardon me for asking," he said sheepishly. "But do you mind telling me where your kitchen is?"

* * *

**For anyone saying that Salem can't copy Rule Breaker, remember, Salem is a pretty proud woman. What she thinks she can do and what she can actually do might not be the same.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Thanks to Ray O'Neill for his help in beta-reading. The story would be a complete mess without him.**

**Chapter 3**

Salem stepped forward out of the puddle at her feet and frowned down at the black liquid left behind.

Shirou had removed her curse and removed the Grimm influence from her. But she had still drowned (she shuddered as the memories replayed through her mind) in that pool until the essence of the God of Darkness had steeped into her, filling her to overflowing. Each moment had been agony as the liquid had violated and damaged every cell of her body only for it all to heal back.

One slice had undone the consequences of that mistake. But that Grimm essence was separated from her rather than destroyed.

What did that mean? She had felt the magic violate the sanctity of her body and soul, scan through her entire being, and act on it. But if it wasn't destroying the curse, then… had it unbound it? Instead of removing the Grimm influence and maybe the immortality, had it simply separated her from it?

Salem tried to figure out how the magic had worked. Learning what a magic did was the first step to reverse engineering it. She hadn't needed to do so for thousands of years but she had spent the first few centuries of her life reverse engineering and studying every bit of magic in hope that she could use the gift of the Brother of Darkness against the curse of the Brother of Light.

Except, her immortality had been decided upon by _both_ gods, hadn't it. Salem tried to remember the exact words the Brothers had used. She hadn't been in a good headspace then, completely mad with grief over Ozma's death. It was reasonable grief, that was for sure. The Brothers had denied her her love, denied her the ability to spend her life and death with him. And then, just to prove themselves liars of the highest order, after telling her they couldn't mess with the balance of life and death, they did exactly that! Cursed her to never die _and_ brought Ozma back but only after poisoning him against her!

She could forgive him for being poisoned against her. The hearts of men were easily swayed after all. But for killing her daughters. Never. She would torture him for all eternity for that. She would deny him the release of death, the mercy of just putting it down.

The old familiar rage spiked in her, the sensation reminding her of what she had just lost. It felt comfortable, like the remnant of who she was.

Except, that Salem hadn't been natural. She was an altered being, one tortured by the remains of the Brothers, their curses. Stuck in an unnatural state of infinite life and an unending thirst for destruction. A compromised being of both destruction and life.

She had known she leaned towards destruction. It was as plain as her looks had been. But only now was she noticing how different it had made her.

For instance, Salem unfolded her arms, she wasn't nearly as angry about her dress being cut as she would have been before her curse was lifted.

Glancing down, Salem grimaced as the sting of air pressed on the thin cut across her chest. Focusing her Aura, the wound immediately sealed shut, letting Salem finger her sliced black dress that now had her blood smeared on the inside. Her entire front was cut sharply, the black cloth hanging down and exposing her sliced bra. A fine cut all the way through with not even one thread frayed. The black sword must be very sharp to cut like that.

She had not reacted well to seeing that her dress was ruined. She had liked this dress. Further, her entire front was now exposed!

At least Shirou Emiya had not realized that her dress was cut in half except at the back. He had not reacted like he had done so on purpose. No blush, no staring, no arousal, no smugness, no amusement, no embarrassment, no reaction like how a teenage boy would act if they knew that a lady's dress was falling off. If he had…

She might forgive him due to his removal of her curse. But she would never forget the indignity. However, as he was ignorant of the offense, there was no point in pursuing it as that would result in him learning of her current state. Not acceptable.

No, she'd just count it against her debt to him. Which still was in his favor.

Annoying. A debt in the other direction would have left her able to call on his services until he was cemented as affiliated with her in Ozma's mind and gave Shirou no choice but to continue working for her.

But if she wasn't in his debt, then she would still be under her curse. Which would be even worse even if she was used to it.

Come to think of it, she knew she wasn't affected by the Pool of Annihilation anymore but was she still immortal? Brothers, she hoped not. And she didn't see why only her later curse would be dispelled and not her first. Not unless the curse removal tool only affected the last curse inflicted onto her.

She didn't know, Salem concluded. Shirou hadn't explained much about the tool. Salem would need to either ask him or examine the ritual dagger herself to find out. Something for her to put on her to-do list.

Her stomach growled and Salem frowned. She had forgotten what hunger felt like. Too many centuries of not needing to eat food had spoiled her. Instead, she had felt an emotional hunger. An emotional pit in her belly that could only be filled by revenge. And she still wanted it. No mistake, she still wanted revenge on Ozma and the Brothers. They betrayed her and she would never forgive them for it.

But that was a matter for another time. Right now, she needed to go and get a new outfit.

* * *

Opening the door to her room, Salem noticed a lunging black and red figure striking at her. Reacting automatically, she blasted her Grimm Seer with a cone of fire. Pity that it decided she was hostile. Some of her fancier outfits required a being's assistance to put on.

Salem strode through her bedroom, heading straight for her closet. It was large, as befitted the ruler of the Grimm. Hundreds of outfits hung waiting for her to choose one.

Most of them were black, Salem noted with a frown as she switched her damaged robe with a clean one of the same style. Taking a glance at the floor mirror, Salem grimaced.

The black robe did not mesh with her current skin color and hair at all. And avoid talking about how it clashed with her eyes, she would not be able to look the proper part of the supreme power she was.

Salem sighed as she peeled it off. Right, she would need to get new outfits that matched her old, now current ascetic. Except dresses were not easy to come by in the vicinity.

But she had multiple styles here. Civilization and their trending fashion changed so quickly. No one would take her seriously if she didn't maintain a tasteful appearance. It didn't have to be the trending outfit; she was Salem after all. She was well suited to setting her own style of fashion. But she needed dresses that reflected the mood she sought to impress on petitioners. Black worked well in setting severity. But every once in a few centuries, she would get a more laid-back or casual individual who would come work for her. They worked remarkably well at being the last person one would suspect of being her agent but often required a slightly less formal atmosphere to get their best work out of.

As long as they didn't overstep their boundaries, which they usually quickly learned not to, Salem could compromise.

Now, just needed to find a new outfit that would work for her…

* * *

Salem frowned at her wardrobe.

Five dresses. That was it. Only five outfits that would work for her new appearance.

Everything else wasn't worthy of being worn. Sure, there were a number of nice dresses. Beautiful dresses too. But they were all meant for a woman with white hair, red irises in black sclera, and pasty skin with red lines. Not a blonde with teal eyes and fair skin.

She would need new outfits. At least it would be fitting. New clothes for a new woman. But how would her minions respond to her change in appearance?

Watts would be shocked before trying to hide it and then try to factor her human appearance into his plans. He was far too aware of her strength to entertain rebellion. Tyrian would be in despair with possible anger until she proved she was still Salem at which point she could expect fawning devotion. Hazel would probably blink a few times before dismissing it as a make-over. Cinder…

Cinder. Salem's eyes narrowed. Cinder would potentially be a problem. Her ambitious Maiden aspirant would read the whole change as an opening to vulnerability. Something she would take advantage of.

It was likely that Cinder would be her first test to see if the immortality curse was removed or not. Most likely, Cinder would fail to even injure her and Salem would have to find a new young woman capable of wresting the power of the Maidens away from their current hosts.

An early show of force would have been to done. And then probably repeated after Cinder killed a Maiden and was confident in her power. The illusion of omnipotence was necessary to keep Cinder subservient and the loss of control over the Grimm would convince Cinder Salem was weak.

The easiest way to overcome that would be to reclaim her Grimmhood. All it would take would be to dip into the Pool of Annihilation again. Of course, without immortality, it would kill her. Hopefully instantly instead of a longer, drawn out, torturous death. Like drowning. Drowning was … unpleasant. It took minutes of suffocating followed by a single blissful moment of release and unconsciousness which quickly turned back into drowning without oxygen in her lungs only for the cycle to repeat until she finally blasted her way out of that dratted ocean.

So no, Salem would not be entering the God of Darkness's pool again. While the power over the Grimm was tempting, the price was too great. Not to mention the pain. That was the most painful death she had ever experienced after all.

Salem's stomach growled at her again.

Salem sighed. Ah, the ache she had been ignoring wasn't her anger. She had forgotten. Hopefully, Shirou had already finished cooking.

Taking a final glance at her mirror showing her in one of her acceptable dresses, the former Queen of the Grimm left the room, her graceful stride not displaying any haste. It would not do to arrive in anything other than a serene and controlled state.

* * *

"Hmm," Shirou pondered as he looked over the ingredients in the fridge. Frankly, he was exhausted. It had been a long, long day and he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. But he was also hungry and both Saber and Illya would have reamed him over an open fire if he went to bed without eating something. That said, Saber would have insisted on using the same fire to cook or reheat fried chicken and then hog them all for herself and falsely claim it was part of his punishment to watch her eat while hungry. And then he would have bribed her into letting him off early so that she wouldn't burn the chicken-

No, Shirou closed his eyes as the heartache redoubled. He had to leave the memories behind. Saber and Illya would be happy. He needed to make a new life now. And after that, then he could let himself grieve for what could have been.

They could have been a new happy family. One that could have shared happy memories of Kiritsugu and the wife Shirou had never met, created new memories and maybe even welcome new family members into it. But that possibility was gone now.

Shirou shook his head and refocused. He needed to cook something up. Something that would fit the palate of a king. And he was willing to guess that she was going to be a bit pickier than Saber had been originally. Not that it was hard to find people who enjoyed eating less than Saber did.

Let's see… There wasn't any fish he recognized, no bamboo shoots, the mushrooms had been stored improperly, the vegetables were a tad old, the spices were definitely old, and he didn't recognize the rice type nor could he see a rice cooker. Best to experiment with how to best cook the rice on his own time rather than for a first meal impression. But there was definitely a Western influence judging by the number of Western ingredients.

Shirou stiffened as he remembered poor Sakura. She had surpassed him in Western recipes some time ago but… she was dead now. And once you die, you do not come back to life, even if you deserve a better life. A happier one.

Again, Shirou refocused. He could mourn for Sakura later. What he did have to cook with included chicken, bacon, minced pork, beef, bread, garlic, ginger, onion, salt, pepper, soy sauce, eggs, flour, corn starch, and oil. No sake but several different kinds of alcohol judging by the smell and the bottles. Also, there was a fair bit of kitchen equipment, though a lot of it was covered in dust like no one had used them for some time.

Shirou ignored the instant foods, the ramen, the pre-made gyoza, and the like. He wasn't _that_ hungry and neither Saber or Taiga were threatening to be fed now or else.

But with these ingredients, he could probably make hamburger, somen noodles, or karaage deep-fried chicken. The hamburger would take close to an hour but the chicken would take much less time and be easy to eat.

Eh, he was rather hungry and Salem was very hungry, judging by her stomach growl. And he could easily prepare some quick side dishes while waiting for the meat to get ready. Shirou intentionally avoided thinking about making a more Western dish, not ready to touch the associated memories of cooking alongside Sakura or Sella right now.

Shirou found the cutting board, appropriate knife, grater, mixing bowls, a ziplock bag, pans, pot, ladle, and cooling rack. Looking it all over, Shirou nodded to himself and rolled up a sleeve.

Yosh, time to get started.

* * *

Salem entered the kitchen, which ironically, she had never used despite building it herself. The minions were the only ones that needed something like food. As a Grimm, she hadn't and there wasn't much point to eating with the help.

Shirou was pulling out something brown from a sizzling pot and placing it onto a rack. Ah, so that was the source of the smell she had been sensing as she had gotten closer.

"So boy," Salem reconsidered that term even as she used it. He was a boy but a teenaged boy and boy was a slightly derogative term at that age. She shouldn't use it unless he was committed to her cause and he had messed up. She needed to make a slight peace offering to smooth it over. "What are you making?"

Showing interest in what he was doing would work.

"Karaage chicken," Shirou replied as he scooped out a few pieces. "Almost done. If you would like some, you can take a seat at the table."

Well, that worked. Either he didn't mind being called boy, or he was focusing on the food, or he was hiding any irritation he might have had. Regardless, he had made an invitation and it would be rude of her to refuse it without reason.

But there was no reason to not converse further and gain some more information. Like how did he survive until now? He was convinced this was a different world but he based that off of the broken moon. A moon that had been intact until the God of Darkness and the God of Light broke it while leaving.

If that was the only thing, then it only meant he had somehow survived to the present day. Possibly by taking a dip in the pool for the Brother of Life? Or had he received a curse too? Perhaps he had been sealed away in some manner that the Brothers did not notice him and that time did not pass? Or maybe he had set up a resurrection spell if his tomb had ever been disturbed and it had become buried over millennia. All of those plus more made more sense than him being from another world.

But what to converse about first? She didn't want to jump into the most important thing as easing into the conversation would be better. What would be easiest?

Ah. Salem cleared her throat and began in a casual tone. "I noticed that you used a strange dagger, Rule Breaker, to break my curse. You said that it was made to use against magical bonds? How did you find it or did you make it yourself?"

"Well, the version I used is actually a fake. A forgery, very, very similar to the original." Shirou explained over the sizzling of oil as he scooped out more chicken. "I made the forgery after seeing the original and that helps me be able to trace it."

"So you found such a dagger, made a forgery, and now are able to make numerous magical copies of it," Salem summarized. "That is, assuming it is not only the black and white swords that you can project and trace multiple times at will?"

"Yeah, unless it costs too much magical energy, I can make numerous copies of a single thing," Shirou affirmed with a shrug, his attention still on the chicken.

Thought so, Salem smugly kept to herself. Her hypothesis that he had the equivalent of an armory was right. With an unlimited ability to copy any weapon multiple times, he was the same as always armed. Now the new question she had was, how many of them were magical? Rule Breaker obviously. The black and white swords were not boomerangs and curved in odd directions way too much to be controlled by physics. If not natural and the person was a magician, then obviously magic must be involved. Assuming he wasn't lying about one of his spells or the number of spells he had, then such a thing was beyond him. Unless, the two swords were like the dagger and were also magical.

"Do you often make copies of magical weapons?" Salem leaning forward despite him not turning around due to his attention to the stove.

"Well, sort of?" Shirou hesitated. Was he hiding something or trying to figure out how to explain the answer? "I mean, I don't encounter magical weapons often but when I do, it is sort of second nature to analyze them and copy them."

Interesting. "Well, magical tools were rare back even in my days," Salem informed. "How many do you have?"

"A few hundred I think," Shirou distractedly admitted as he examined one piece of chicken critically.

A few hundred! Salem's eyes widened. That was… Well, he must have had a busy life if he had examined a few hundred different magical weapons at his age.

While Shirou started heaping the chicken onto a platter, Salem regathered herself. A few hundred magical weapons, especially if he could create multiple copies of each, was enough to tip the balance of power between her and Ozma by itself. Most magical tools had crumbled to test of time, leaving this world without any of the more powerful tools of her youth.

"Impressive," Salem found herself sending a compliment his way. "If each weapon has a different enchantment, then being able to copy the sword means that you have several hundred spells mastered. That would make you a powerful mage by any standard."

"Not really," The compliment bounced off like a bullet against a tank as the boy carefully carried the mountainous platter of chicken to the table. "I can't use the spell without the weapon after all."

"Inconsequential," Salem waved the dismissal away. Interesting that he didn't react to flattery. Was it due to his perceived flaw in requiring the weapon? Was he just indifferent to flattery? Or something else? Either way, a resistance to flattery would make him difficult to manipulate via positive reinforcement of behaviors. "Figuring out how to maximize what you know is a basic route to power."

Shirou looked slightly uncomfortable as he put down the platter before turning around and heading back to grab some more dishes and forks on the counter.

Okay, she triggered something. Not sure what, it could have been power but that was so vague it didn't tell her anything. She would just have to remember this for future reference. But she would need a new topic of conversation.

As she weighed various pros and cons of numerous topics like whether to return to Rule Breaker or talk about the gods, Shirou put down a plate and fork in front of her before placing one opposite her. The smaller dishes consisting of fruits and vegetables were placed in the center between the two.

Or she could just accept dinner starting and postpone future questions until after she has eaten.

"Itadakimasu" Shirou suddenly said.

"What was that?" Salem questioned.

"Oh, it is just a cultural blessing on the food," Shirou answered. "I guess you don't have it here, do you?"

"No, we do not," Salem affirmed. Different religions had different blessings but she stopped thanking the Brothers for the life which was given and the death that turned that life into food after they had behaved unjustly towards her and Ozma. "I suppose you aren't a follower of the God of Light or the God of Darkness?"

"Never heard of them," Shirou answered casually as he started putting food on his plate.

Well, isn't that interesting. Perhaps he actually was from a different world after all. Or maybe he was from a remote barbarian tribe that had wandered away and had forgotten about the two creator gods. She had encountered their ruins when wandering the world.

"Um, is there any problems with the food? Allergies?" Shirou asked, breaking into Salem's musings.

"No," she answered as she reached out to grab some chicken for herself. "Just considering things."

"Well, I hope the food helps. I always found a mind works better when you have a filled belly," Shirou smiled as he took his first bite, popping half of a piece of golden-brown chicken into his mouth.

Salem prepared herself to stab a small piece of chicken and examined it. Cooking was not her specialty but the brown bread crust around the chicken looked crisp and well cooked. The aroma wafting up to her nose was enticing and relaxing. Her stomach growled in anticipation, the greedy thing.

Salem took a bite.

OW!

Something bloomed to life in her. It was overwhelming, like going from a dark room into bright sunlight. The feeling stabbed her mouth and tongue, sharper than the rare occasion when she bit her own tongue. But different. The pain felt odd. No, that wasn't pain. It was like scent. This pain wasn't like when she was stabbed or injured, it was nuanced somehow though just as strong as a wound and the nuances were similar to but different from smell.

"Hey, are you alright?" Shirou asked in concern, getting up.

Salem blinked and felt something wet on her face. A tear? She hadn't cried since she got over the pain of death of her daughters and Ozma's betrayal.

What was this?

"What…is this?" Salem asked as her mind struggled to comprehend the sense she rediscovered.

"Breaded deep-fried chicken," Shirou responded. "It's a bit quick but I felt we would enjoy a meal ready sooner rather than later. Were you planning something for the chicken? I'm sorry I used it, I didn't know."

"No, not the name of the food or the chicken," Salem refuted, her mind seeking to comprehend the sensation. It was, centered on her tongue? She ran the tongue around her mouth and nearly shivered as a weaker form of the sensation struck her.

"Um, then is it about the food?" Shirou asked with a concerned but confused look in his eyes.

"Yes," Salem affirmed. "When I put it in my mouth, something happened. An odd sensation but it wasn't smell or touch."

"You mean taste?" Shirou asked uncertainly.

"Taste?" Salem muttered to herself as her long memory sought back into the depths of time. Oh, her daughters had complained about their vegetables because they tasted bad. Ozma had had to instruct the cooks to touch the vegetables up to make them taste better as she hadn't been able…to…tell…

Had she really forgotten what taste felt like?

Salem cautiously picked up her fork from her plate and took another piece, aware that Shirou was watching carefully with a frown. It made sense that he would do so as this was the product of his effort. But if it was poisoned… Well, at least she would learn if she was mortal or not. Also, he had taken the first bite. But that could have just been a trick where only certain pieces were poisoned and he knew how to tell which was which.

If it did turn out that she was both poisoned and didn't die, she would make him suffer for his betrayal. She still had some spells she wanted to test out for causing suffering but wasn't sure if it would work differently on a magician as compared to modern magicless humans.

Subtly, she wove a spell that would react to any movement other than her own by swallowing the area around her into the ground. The spell wouldn't last long on its own but she didn't need it to. As she did, Shirou slightly stiffened but relaxed after a moment of thought. Did he sense her spell? She had made sure to minimize her signs of using magic. Interesting if he was sensitive to magic. Could she use that to find the Maidens?

Preparations set, Salem took another bite. A tear dropped from her eye as warmth and vivid sensation filled her mouth again as sound of crunching echoed through her own skull.

"Is there something wrong?" Shirou asked hesitantly with a frown.

"No, I just," Salem took another bite to give time to think. "I just am reacquainting myself with taste."

She would need to be adjusted by the time her minions returned. Her crying like this was undignified. She was Salem, not someone who was overwhelmed by food.

"You lost your sense of taste?" Shirou looked horrified like someone had bitten his mother in half right in front of him.

"A side-effect I had forgotten," Salem dismissed as she grabbed another piece. She was hungry and while the taste was more akin to a shock than pleasant, she needed to get used to it.

"I'm sorry," Shirou apologized looking down at the chicken. "If I had known, I would have chosen to make something blander. Doing something with as much flavor as this must be hard on you."

"It is of no matter," Salem didn't concern herself much with the conversation as she was intent on exploring the returned sense and tried to keep her eyes from dropping water.

"I'll make a blander meal next time," Shirou promised.

Salem reluctantly put down her fork on her plate and crossed her hands in front of her.

"Shirou Emiya," she began. Calling a person by their full name—wait, was that his full name? Something for later—made it obvious that you were serious and that they were to pay attention to her. Worked well with subtle threats. "I have already told you to not concern yourself with my former lack of taste. Please, do not make me have to repeat myself."

Shirou looked contrite. Good.

Salem picked up her fork and started eating again. Now that she was getting used to having sensations like these, she thinks she might actually be able to enjoy the act of eating. She could tell there was more than one, what was the term, flavor? More than one flavor in this and while different, they complemented each other. Much like how humans and Faunus did if they ever stopped hating each other. That astonishingly stupid hatred in the face of her Grimm really did make her work much easier.

* * *

The meal was over and crumbs were all that remained. The two hungry souls had devoured everything.

"That was delicious," Salem complimented. Even the final bite had been too intense for her but it was incomparably more manageable than her first. A few more meals like that would raise her tolerance to taste to acceptable levels.

"Thanks," Shirou accepted as he got up, grabbing and stacking empty dishes and plates from the table. "It's always nice to hear that one's food was acceptable."

Salem sat back into her chair, her spell to defend from an attack long dispersed. Shirou took all the dirty silverware to the sink where he turned on the water.

"Well, I suppose I ought to inform you about the world you are currently in." Salem started. "First, I believe that you aren't actually from a different world. This world used to have an intact moon thousands of years ago. We were a land of magic, peace, and prosperity until the two gods decided that the actions of a minority offended them and decided to wipe out all humans except for me and their champion. Finding their entertainment to be now dull, they left this world a remnant of what it once was and shattered the moon just to prove they can."

"Harsh, but I can't say that a god acting like that surprises me." Shirou commented as he started scrubbing one plate. "A god is fundamentally inhuman. They never really cared too much about mankind. That said, I am just going off of what I was taught as my world doesn't have any gods anymore. Their age ended long ago and the age of man took over."

"That describes this world too," Salem agreed. "There were only two actual gods who could affect both humanity and the world. The God of Darkness who delighted in death and destruction and gave mankind magic while his brother, the God of Light, enjoyed creation and gave us life."

"I don't know of any mythology who has gods of that type," Shirou admitted as he continued doing the dishes. "Sure, there are multiple pantheons who associate the god of the sun with life but usually nighttime is something else, like the god of the sun having to rest or hide or something."

"Pantheons?" Salem questioned. "What are the pantheons you know about?"

She was expecting him to list off a few. Some of which she would be able to tell him the real truth behind. Like the one that worshipped the Maidens or the remnants of the religion that she and Ozma had centered around themselves. Those were easy to disprove. And after they were on the same page, then she could inform him of the truth and be believed without having to tolerate him arguing that this or that god would disapprove.

"Well, hundreds or maybe even thousands really," Shirou admitted. "My people, the Japanese, have literally thousands of gods in our history alone and we are just one of hundreds of nations. If you were to travel back into the past, you would find numberless pantheons that lived and directly interacted with humanity. They were the dominant species on the planet so we called that time period the 'Age of the Gods'. Eventually, three major events happened and the gods lost their primacy to mankind. After that, the age of gods slowly came to an end as mankind ascended into power. But each pantheon had their own gods that had their own Authorities. I will admit, I don't know all of their names, but not as single one that I know of was titled the Brother of Light or the Brother of Darkness."

"Impossible," Salem shook her head. This would require more candor than she had anticipated. "Remnant only had two real gods. The others were all figments of imagination cooked up in the minds of people who had gone generations without seeing the Brothers."

"And that is a sign that I come from a different world," Shirou repeated. "Just a few but we had Amaterasu, Gozu Tenno, Raijin, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hecate, Lugh, Zeus, Marduk, Ishtar, Ereshkigal, Tiamat, Medusa, Euryale, Stheno, Parvati, Kama, Shiva, Indra, Quetzalcoatl, those are merely a few from dozens of pantheons, each with dozens of gods. Some religions had hundreds or even thousands. And most of them were very real."

Salem's mind reeled at the thought of thousands of gods, all on one planet. And they had names? Did the Brothers have their own actual name rather than just titles?

"So, yeah, I am pretty confident that I am from a different world," Shirou cocked his head and pointed at where the Dust crystal powered the stove was and then at the one in the refrigerator. "Also, there is this weird crystal thing that powers the stove and refrigerator that my world doesn't have. Reacted to my magical energy so I had to stop examining it but my world doesn't have anything even close to it. Or if we did, it no longer exists."

No Dust? Add in his mention from the interview that he had no idea what a Semblance or Aura was, and the results were shaping up to be different from what she imagined.

Then a thought struck Salem. For centuries she had plotted on how to gain revenge on the Brothers in absentia. But never once had she wondered a simple question

When the Brothers left Remnant behind, where did they go?

And if they had created one planet, why not another?

"Hmm," Salem hummed to herself. She would need to look things up. She had lived for far too long and had forgotten so many things. She would need to go through records and meditate to retrieve ancient memories.

"Perhaps you are right," Salem conceded. "I will need time to think on it."

"Don't worry about taking your time," Shirou said. "I know I would have difficulty believing someone if they said they were an alien. People who travel worlds tend to be uncommon to say the least. Besides, I still need to fix up the castle so if you want to ask more questions, I'll still be here."

She didn't need him to fix her castle, Salem opened her mouth to protest but stopped. She wanted to keep an eye on this magician. He thought he still needed to fix her castle. If the two coincided, the saying 'Don't look the gift horse in the mouth' seemed rather apt.

"Very well," she allowed as she got up. She wanted to meditate and think on this further. "I will return again at a later time with more questions."

"Not going anywhere," Shirou admitted. "Something to do with an ignorance of places to go, I might guess."

Salem pursed her lips. Ah yes, he originally wanted to get directions to civilization. She would need to think of a way to have him returning to her. Maybe she could give him directions to Menagerie? They were subtly hostile to humans.

Regardless, there was a lot that changed today. Perhaps it was best if she had some time to think. Her meditation room would suffice. Or perhaps sleeping in her bedroom would help restore mental equilibrium.

Speaking of bedrooms, Salem stopped at the door and turned around to order. "Come with me. I will show you to a room you may use until you are ready to depart."

Shirou turned off the water, dried his hands, and walked over to her.

"Thank you," his brown eyes met her own. "I appreciate it, Your Majesty."

* * *

**Yes, this was strongly inspired by Emiya Gohan. I'm hungry now…**

**And no, I don't know if Salem can actually taste anything. I am making that up. In my opinion, power should always come with a drawback and cost so taking Salem's sense of taste is now the drawback of her having control over the Grimm and being a Grimm.**

**Besides, I like the idea of Salem being unable to taste anything until now.**


	5. Chapter 4

**Merry Christmas to you all! Have you been good boys and girls? If so, then enjoy the chapter!**

**Okay, here we go. First arc, the introduction is finished, this chapter starts the second arc. When what I want is really to get to the third arc… At least I managed to get another 20,000 words out. Not bad considering this is the second draft and most of the first had to scrapped.**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Shirou eyed the sliced rug in his hands and shrugged. He wasn't a tailor, his best effort wasn't much. As such, anyone who looked would be able to tell that it was a rather patchwork job to sew the split ends back together.

But this was the best he could do. He wasn't Illya or Rin who could use magecraft to restore objects back to their original form. That wasn't what he capable of.

Getting up, Shirou stretched, feeling the warmth of muscles moving again. The castle wasn't cold but sitting in the same place for so long wasn't exactly easy. But on the bright side, he was done now.

Looking around the throne room, Shirou could see the repaired traces of the room. Gashes in the stone had been filled in with what mortar Salem had provided. The glass window had been magicked by her into a state identical to before she had tossed one of the rebellious Grimm through it. Which just raised the question, why she would want him to do this second-rate quality when she was better at it than he was beyond him. Well, unless it was just because she felt like it was his responsibility to fix what he broke. Which was fair.

It had been over a week since he had arrived. A week of fixing the castles, making meals and answering Salem's endless questions. By the sheer quantity and what those questions were about, Shirou was now sure that she was definitely a magus. No one else studied or questioned that intensely while knowing so much about the supernatural. And a magus would find sense in building a castle out in the middle of monster-infested nowhere. Said something about Shirou's quality as a magus that he wanted to leave here.

But he was now done. The last of the repairs were finished and he could finally see about finding a new life. And a new purpose to exist.

But what should he seek? He had thought about it ever since he had arrived. He didn't deserve to take up the dream of being a hero. He didn't have a loved one or family left to protect. He didn't care about the Root and couldn't see any reason to.

And also, what should he seek? Issei used meditation and a deep personal connection to the Buddha to find purpose. Shinji's hidden ambition to be a magus was something he developed from his childhood and had defined his entire life. Sakura…had defined her life purpose in terms of him, something that he was still uncomfortable about. Rin had the pride of her family. Saber had the duty towards her kingdom. Rider had sought to protect her loved ones. Berserker had sought atonement for his sins.

Any of those were decent purposes for life. But so many of them were inherited. Shirou had only inherited from his biological parents their last words for him to live and from Kiritsugu, the ideal of being a hero of justice. The first simply wasn't enough and he had chosen to repay Kiritsugu's debt to Illya instead of his dream.

He needed to do something else. Maybe a journey? Or meditating? Only meditating hadn't revealed anything else. Nothing other than more bits of the Reality Marble. He got another line on the stanza he was making for himself. But he also had the feeling that if he didn't have a purpose, he would never be able to complete or manifest it.

Inheriting a dream wasn't enough, meditating was more likely to reveal his Origin and Reality Marble than a purpose, and for a journey to be a good idea, he needed to have somewhere to travel where he wouldn't starve to death. Wastelands without any living life had a minor disadvantage in searching for a purpose in life.

Pondering more about how he could search for purpose in life, Shirou sought out the only other life in the castle.

* * *

Salem had accepted that Shirou Emiya was an alien. Yes, he was a human with magic, but his knowledge and life were too different from anything she had known or heard of.

Staring at the results of Watt's DNA sequencer, Salem leaned back in the chair, deep in thought.

Shirou Emiya's genetics were different. Not dissimilar from humans, whether the humans that the Brothers had created or the humans that had evolved after the gods had left. Frankly, it was odd enough from a biological standpoint that all three types, herself, modern humans, Faunus and now Shirou too were compatible in the breeding sense. Evolution with a mirror path along the same lines of creations? Unlikely from probability alone but scientists still changed their beliefs every few generations or so. Given the evidence in front of her, they probably would rewrite the theory of evolution again. Not that it had been very good in the first place given that it still couldn't explain how Faunus traits passed down from one generation to the next.

But that wasn't her concern. She was just concerned about proof for Shirou's words. This was a good indication but wasn't definitive. If he had had extremely different genetics, she would have known for sure. If his genetics matched her own or modern humans, then that would have disproved it as well. As it was, it was inconclusive. Which meant more tests. Preferably of a different nature.

But what kind? His clothes, which were in need of replacing with all the holes they possessed, had signs of modern industry. His magic proved that he wasn't a modern human or Faunus. His knowledge didn't match ancient humanity.

She was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that he was what he claimed. A human from another planet where the Brothers would have just been one of many if they had still been around.

And questioning him about it had only revealed that the Gods were cast down by the will of the planet itself. Which implied that the gods hadn't created the planet despite their claims. But the gods being liars in that too shouldn't really be all that surprising. Hypocrites, the lot of them.

That said, Shirou had known a bit about the three events that had led to their downfall. An event 14,000 years in his past where an alien had invaded and had devasted numbers and life until a human had defeated it. A rejection of the gods by a demi-god with the purpose to bind humanity to the gods over 4000 years ago. And finally, the creation of magecraft to end the monopoly of the gods over miracles and magic about 3,000 years prior.

The first was beyond her. She had not a clue where she could get aliens that were capable of wiping out all life and gods. Shirou might qualify but given his attitudes, general strength, and that he hadn't killed her, she doubted that he would try to annihilate civilization and commit wide-scale genocide.

The second would require the Relics at the very least. Something that Ozma had been intent on denying her for thousands of years. Right now, she needed the Maidens to unlock the vaults where they were kept. Vaults held in major cities full of people and defended by armies and dozens of Huntresses and Huntsmen. She had already decided to acquire the Relics so it wouldn't be harder than normal. But she would probably need to invent a ritual to invert their purpose without activating them. Now that would be truly difficult. More difficult than taking and keeping them out of Ozma's hands, which was already hard enough.

Of course, that was assuming that Ozma hadn't lied to her and that the gods hadn't lied to him. She wouldn't put it past any of them.

The third though…

Salem hummed in thought as she got up from the chair and walked out the lab door. The third was the trickiest yet also the most possible. The Brother of Light had presumably given the new humans the ability to use Aura and Semblances. The connection between light and a person's soul being used indicated it. The further fact that everything other than her Grimm, which were creations of the Brother of Darkness, had Aura seemed to hint at it even further.

But magic was a gift from the God of Darkness, not the God of Light. Semblances were not magic though you could masquerade one as the other.

She might be able to take magic, the one thing that separated the original humans of herself and Ozma from the modern mankind, and make it public. Give it to every human and Faunus. Ozma had already done that in a way. He had split his own power and gave it to the four Maidens as well as various champions.

But that wasn't what Shirou claimed that Solomon had done. He hadn't split his God-given power to give to his people. He had used it to create a Foundation that any human that qualified could tap into. And once that first Foundation was built—whatever that was, Shirou hadn't known—other Foundations had started springing up.

It seemed to her that what this King of Mages had done was to create a Foundation for a magecraft that created new Foundations for Magecraft. Shirou hadn't been too sure about that but agreed it might be possible. He had also mentioned about Magic Crests first appearing afterwards but that wasn't relevant.

What had followed was picking over his brain for every single thing he knew about Solomon and the other two events.

Shirou hadn't claimed it was much and he was right, it wasn't. But then again, this world wasn't his world. Magic worked differently here, history was different, and the gods were different. Doing the exact same thing here would probably result in a different result. No, what she needed to do was take what Shirou knew, figure out what really happened, and adapt it to Remnant.

Which meant experimentation and research. She thought she had finished millennia ago when nothing she had been able to invent or discover had been able to kill her. She had pushed magic further than anyone else. She had discovered new fields of magic, explored them, and then found even more advanced fields from there. She had invented new techniques, spells no one else had been able to imagine, and achieved things that not even Ozma was capable of.

All of it had been for naught. She had not been able to die.

But if that old knowledge helped her here, if it made her capable of inventing magecraft and spreading to everyone… That was precious. This was a way to spit in the Brother's eyes.

The fact that humans and Faunus would just use it to kill each other wasn't her concern.

* * *

"Salem," Shirou greeted in the hallway.

"Shirou," she nodded back, wondering what he had come seeking her out for. Was it about lunch? Hmm, what would she like to eat today? Over time, food had turned from an agony into something pleasant, something that she could look forward to.

"Just finished the last of the repairs," Shirou began.

Not about lunch. A pang of disappointment rang in Salem's mind before she realized what this meant. If repairs were finished, then he would be leaving soon.

"Is there anything else I need to do to pay for passage?" Shirou asked, his stance casual like that of a person asking for something normal rather than how to escape from the heart of the Grimmlands.

Salem's thoughts raced. She didn't want to, couldn't let Shirou wander away from her influence. She couldn't afford for him to go to Ozma. The questions she had asked would tell Ozma much about how her plans will change. Ozma could then use his Relic of Knowledge to learn both her new possible plans as well as what Shirou had known. Or even what Shirou hadn't known even.

However, she was in Shirou's debt as much as he was somehow ignorant of it. If she created the impression that she would ignore her debts and wouldn't compensate people for working for her, she would lose her minions and it would be much, much more difficult to recruit new ones. Further, Shirou could possibly rebel and then he would certainly join Ozma.

She needed to let him think that she was honoring their bargain but just drawing him further onto her side until he could not escape, until her enemies were his enemies.

What could she do, what could she do? If she could contact her minions, she could send one of them to travel with Shirou. If she wasn't so sure that Cinder would betray her if she learned just how much power Shirou represented, she could have Cinder seduce him. But long-term seduction did not work well with keeping the agent ignorant. Putting the two together would definitely result in Cinder figuring it out.

Could she give him a scroll and bug it? Infiltrate a virus in? But that would require Watts, who she couldn't reach right now.

She couldn't send Grimm after him. They no longer listened to her. She had tested it further and while they obeyed her previous orders from when she was a Grimm, they did not acknowledge any new ones.

If more mundane methods wouldn't work, then what about her magic? What spells could she use?

Perhaps she could set up a scrying spell? But all it would take is a sudden movement or change when she wasn't watching and she would lose track of him.

But by then, maybe one of her minions would have returned and she could send him to accompany Shirou. Tyrian would be…complicated but able to do at least an adequate job until she could replace him with someone else. Even Cinder would be able to keep an eye on him for a brief time, though it would be detrimental to Cinder's mission of tracking down a Maiden. Watts or Hazel would be best until Shirou was firmly on her side. But which one—

"Do you want to come with me?"

Salem blinked.

"I'm sorry, but are you asking me, the Queen of the Grimm, to join you in wandering Remnant?" She asked gesturing at her appearance.

"You aren't Queen of the Grimm anymore," Shirou shrugged. "And now that you look just like any other human, would anyone be able to tell who you were? Also, it seems like you would be lonely all by yourself here."

Salem blinked and laughed. She laughed and laughed.

Oh, yes, she had forgotten that she now looked just the same as any other human. Which meant that Ozma would not receive any reports about her if she appeared.

In other words, she was now a piece on the board. The Queen disguised as an invisible pawn. One that only Ozpin would recognize and she could walk past any of his agents and never attract their suspicion. And with her traveling with Shirou, she could easily manipulate their course to never go anywhere near Ozpin or Vale.

"Was it something I said?" Shirou asked, looking confused.

"No, I just had forgotten that I was no longer Grimm," Salem chuckled. "I would love to go with you and see the world."

Well, it looks like luck was smiling on her. The answer to her problem dropped right into her lap. She could turn Shirou herself even while letting him go and paying her debt. The best solution to her dilemma.


End file.
